THE THEOSOPHISTS

[Sunday Times, London, October 13, 1889]

To the Editor of the Sunday Times.

Sir,

In your last issue you published a statement by your New York correspondent to the effect that Dr. Coues asserts (where?) that Madame Blavatsky has been expelled from the Theosophical Society.
May I be permitted a respectful advice? It is that, in case you take on faith again such a Yankee statement, you should in future follow the admirable policy of Mr. Artemus Ward. That great showman never risked even a harmless jest without adding the explanatory words, “This is a goak.” Such parenthetical declaration would save extra bewilderment to the public, already lost in a regrettable mist in connection with all that concerns Theosophy, by making the “goak” apparent.
And if you would have the truth, then I may as well give it to you now. Madame Blavatsky, as one of the chief founders of the Theosophical Society, cannot be expelled from the T.S. for several good reasons, the least of which is that there is no one in the Society having authority to do so—not even the President-Founder, Colonel Olcott—as in such a case Madame Blavatsky might, with as much right, return the compliment and expel him. But as it is not likely that our President will ever become a lunatic, no such event threatens the T.S. just now.
Let, then, the Yankee cock-and-bull story—just set afloat by its author, an ex-Theosophist, who WAS EXPELLED FROM OUR AMERICAN SECTION TWO MONTHS AGO FOR SLANDER, as the whole Theosophical Society knows—remain for what it is worth and make the INITIATED reader merry.
Yours very truly,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
London, October 9.